Good news out of Wisconsin last night:
A Wisconsin judge has struck down Governor Walker’s law ending most collective bargaining for public workers. A circuit judge ruled the law violates the state and the U.S. Constitutions and is null and void. It isn’t clear if the ruling means the law is immediately suspended. We’ll bring you more information as we get it.
Of course, Governor Douchebag will be appealing the ruling, but it’s a good first start (and it seems pretty obvious to me, but then I’m no lawyer).
As we all know, Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan are going to balance the budget by reducing the tax rate and eliminating some secret tax loop holes. We know this will work, they say, because there are five studies proving it. Well, five-ish.
A closer examination, however, calls into question the fact that there are even five studies at all. Last week, the Romney campaign passed along the five documents that the candidate had referenced on NBC’s Meet the Press. Three of the five are blog posts or op-eds (as opposed to academic literature), and two of those three are written by the same author: Harvard economist Martin Feldstein.
Of the remaining two studies, one is the tax reform white paper authored by Romney-backing economists and paid for by Romney for President, Inc. (in an email to PolitiFact, the Romney campaign highlighted several Wall Street Journal editorials in place of the campaign white paper as the “fifth” study).
The final study, produced by Princeton University’s Harvey Rosen, backs the Romney campaign’s assertions by arguing that people will work more, accumulate more income, pay more taxes, and seek out fewer loopholes if their tax rates are lowered. But even that report has several nuances that complicate the candidate’s use of it
I dunno about you, but I’m pretty confident.
In other news, I was surprised that Justin Bieber had a BN of 4. So I turned to the definitive authority – the Oracle of Bacon (and, yes, there is an app for that).
According to them, Justin Bieber is a 2:
Justin Bieber was in Men in Black 3 (2012) with Josh Brolin.
Josh Brolin was in Hollow Man (2000) with Kevin Bacon.
Justin Bieber was in Men in Black 3? Yes, apparently so. He and Lady Gaga played aliens (not much of a stretch, there).
Google definitely has a faulty Bacon Calculator.
According to the Oracle:
BN # of People
0 1
1 2573
2 285162
3 955841
4 239029
5 18963
6 1754
7 170
8 27
Total number of linkable actors: 1503520
Weighted total of linkable actors: 4503281
Average Kevin Bacon number: 2.995
So we need to find those 27 folks with an 8. That should kill the whole weekend (and the work week, too).